And The Worst of the Worst

[Bandobras Took]

CR3 cannons are far far better than drill 4 gunpowder units. Even without doing the math, I'd be wiling to wager that a CR3 cannon will have >50% odds against a drill 4 rifle.

Great. Which one will actually capture a town?

Spiritual is WAY better because of the numerous diplomatic options it opens up, in addition to being able to juggle slavery/OR with caste/pacifism. It also lets you swap between mercantilism, free market, and state property as necessary in the mid to late game.

I'm not contesting any of that. I'm saying that Isabella doesn't have any help getting there, and that this is her problem and what puts her behind Mao.

If you're attacking them, catapults,

Drill reduces collateral damage.

horse archers,

You do recall I mentioned Engineering? We're assuming both Isabella and Mao have it: Isabella for her UB, Mao because he's Protective. If there's no Engineering, Mao's still ahead because Isabella doesn't have squat.

If you're defending against them, longbows. You have to remember that Chokonus cannot receive CR promotions so they are terrible on offense.

Why on earth am I not using Siege to lower city defenses? Drill-promoted Cho-Ko-Nus are incredible on offense because:

They're less likely to need turns healing after Siege has done its job;

This combines with the free CG1 makes them well-suited to keeping a just-conquered city against a counterattack;

They continue collateral damage even if you're out of/have already used available siege.

And if you're not using them on offense, the collateral bonus is useless.

Actually, if you're using them to decimate an invading stack, it's not useless, even though that is an actively defensive action.

Against this, we have Isabella's highly promoted Siege. At the point at which Mao will be attacking, Isabella will be able to produce high-level Catapults and Trebs. She still needs a regular attacking force. For her, that means Civil Service. Mao can make do without it because Cho-Ko-Nus pick up the slack.

We now go to Spain's UU. It requires military tradition, gunpowder, horses, and iron.

This means it's already later than Cho-Ko-Nus by rather a wide margin. As I said, Isabella doesn't have any help getting to her real strengths. Mao does, because the time gap is far shorter and Protective can cover your behind in a bad start.

Spain's UU is incompatible with their UB unless you happen to like 1-move Cuirassiers which are only good against units that they were going to beat anyway with the notable exception of Pikemen. Hmm . . . a unit requiring Military Tradition vs. a unit that requires Engineering. If that's the fight, then you were going to beat the opponent anyway through a tech advantage.

You've now somehow gotten to Steel and can produce great CR3 Cannons if you avoid obsoleting Castles. Anybody with a couple of Great Generals from early wars/proper civics is producing them anyway. At the same time, Mao is making use of drafted gunpowder units with two free promotions to overwhelm with numbers, or using the same Civics combo to produce great Gunpowder units and respectable siege. He'll even be able to do it after obsoleting castles.

And I haven't even gone into how Mao's UB makes him a contender for cultural victories.

Again, I'm not saying Mao's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm not saying Protective is the be-all and end-all. I'm saying that Isabella's worse than Mao because her opening game is weaker. Mao has a shorter distance to go before hitting his strengths and a less rocky time getting there.

 

[Iranon]

Regarding City Raider on non-siege units: This promotion line is only an asset against units with low defensive modifiers.
Against archery units defending hill cities, Combat 1 can beat City Raider 1, and Combat 1 + Cover can City Raider 2.

This is without culture or wall defence, with those in City Raider can lose badly. An exaggerated and mean way of putting it: City Raider is useful when you don't need it (low-defense city) and when you can't get it any more (after AIs switch from longbows to units with more base strength and lower specific modifiers).

*

With Cho-Ko-Nus, the majority of our army will deal collateral damage, so we will be fighting many wounded opponents. Drill is good for reliably wounding the top unit and for beating up wounded units. This makes it very attractive even though it doesn't shine in idealised testing conditions.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Mao Zedong starts with Mining and Agriculture (the royal flush of starting techs) and has a sped up initial worker build due to Expansive. Clearly the voters in the poll underappreciate the start of the game.

 

[Shafi-is-back]

My votes were for -

(1) Charlie - yuck! hate charlie, crappy UU, crappy traits ...
(2) Mao - I donno it just seems so boring when i play mao. kind of meh ...